Hey Bruce! Your article prompted me to check my S3003s, funny thing is the layout is quite a bit different. I know for a fact thought that they are genuine, they are well over 12 years old so they must be an older revision. This also makes them too old to be Chinese knockoffs. (I really had no reason to open them, I just wanted to! lol) I also have a few Tower Hobbies TS-53 servos that I assumed were S3003 clones, and now I know they really are. The circuit boards are exactly the same as the newer genuine S3003s in your article. That wasn't even that long ago, and I think the money I saved by buying the Tower vs the Futaba equals the amount a good Chinese standard servo cost today!

I noticed that in your article it mentions a rubber grommet for the wires in the Futabas. In my Futabas and the Tower clones there is no grommet. Just a very tightly molded plastic support. It is tight enough though to keep most junk and splashes of water out.

Nice article, I'm always weary of Chinese sales antics so its nice to be informed. Thanks!

G'Day all, I bid on and won 4 so called Futaba S3003 servos. on there e-bay page the genuine Futaba S3003 Servos photo was shown.But when they arrived ( 34 days later ) they were the fake Futaba S3003 servos as shown on RC Model Review.The seller was demonerrr ( demone_exwb4257tbtg@members.ebay.com.hk ). I have swapped 5 or so e-mails with them, but no results yet, I do believe they are stalling for timeand waiting for me to give up. If I go down I'll go down fighting. Bert.

I know this is an old thread, but a buddy bought some 3004 servos from a swap meet a few months ago. The 3004 is the ball bearing version of the 3003. He just started flying them recently and the plane developed some severe slop in the servo shaft and gear train within a few flights. Not at all what you would expect of a ball bearing servo, even a cheap one like the Futaba 3004.

Closer inspection revealed they were fake 3004 servos. They look just like the fake 3003 servos in this thread, except for the 3004 label. We haven't disassembled one yet, but we strongly suspect the fake 3004 servos don't even have a ball bearing.